A Russian convicted murderer who was sentenced to 11 years in prison after he killed his girlfriend and put her body through a meat grinder has been pardoned after fighting against Ukraine, his mother said.

The mother of Dmitry Zelensky told the Russian media news outlet 59.RU that her son was pardoned after serving less than half of his sentence.

Zelensky, a veteran of the Second Chechen War, confessed to the 2018 murder of his 27-year-old girlfriend, Tatiana Melekhina, in 2019, 59.RU reported.

He admitted to strangling her to death after a quarrel, before disposing of her body in a horrific way to try to cover up his tracks, the media outlet said.

According to 59.RU, Zelensky told investigators during an interrogation that he dismembered her body, processed it in a meat grinder, collected the bones in three bags, and threw them into the river.

    • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No, rehabilitation is about your concern for criminals, and I’m not saying criminals don’t deserve concern. But appropriately long sentences are how you demonstrate to victims that you understand the harm that was done to them and are holding those responsible to account. If you don’t do that, trust me, people will start exacting their own punishments, and you don’t want victims administering “justice.”

      • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Long sentences do not demonstrate anything except distain for the criminal. Rehabilitation shows that not only do you recognize that what was done to the victim was wrong, but that you are also working to ensure that it never happens to anyone again. Putting someone in prison for a long time does nothing but cost the state more money and make it harder to successfully reintegrate into society in a healthy way. Especially American prisons, which are definitively proven to increase the likelihood of further criminality through their use of torture and abuse of prisoners to ensure compliance.

        • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Long sentences do not demonstrate anything except distain for the criminal.

          Incorrect. You try raising a child without ever punishing them for bad behavior. It’s called permissive parenting, and it results in unruly, self-centered, impulsive adults with no self-control. It’s the same for criminals–you don’t punish them for their crimes, they won’t change their behavior. This is not debatable, it’s repeatedly proven science.

          • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            If long prison sentences were the primary factor in reduction in recidivism, then the US would have among the lowest recidivism rate in the world. It doesn’t. So, while longer sentences may lower recidivism some, they are far from the only way to do so, much less the most effective way to do so. Plenty of countries have rehabilitative prisons with significantly shorter sentences and yet have half or less the recidivism rate of the United States.

            • Tedesche@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              If long prison sentences were the primary factor in reduction in recidivism

              I never said that. Rehabilitative prisons are the main component in reducing recidivism, but short sentences that don’t punish criminals for their crimes reduce confidence in victims that justice has been served. Rehabilitating the criminal isn’t the only thing that matters; making them suffer for the harm they’ve done is also important. As much as people would like to believe we can excise that from our judicial systems, it can’t be done. You will simply get vigilantes.

              • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Yes I get it, you believe in personally bringing harm to both inmate and guards by forcing guards to perpetuate human rights abuses upon the inmates. So why is there no vigilante Justice in countries with rehabilitative prison systems, if it’s just so inevitable? Is it possible that your myopic view of humanity is tainted by a ethnocentric perspective? Because most victims of most crimes aren’t frothing at the mouth for punishment. They want JUSTICE, as you said. Justice and Punishment are not the same. Nor does our system provide Justice for victims, in nearly any case.

                If your concern is Justice, then you should learn of Restorative Justice models, and how they function.

          • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Ok we are talking about actual criminal justice with real social stakes, not your strange parental power fantasy or whatever it is you are ranting about.